by Ray Cluley
She laughed. It was wonderful.
James could only look at her.
“Number lock,” she said. “So embarrassing.”
“Oh.”
“Not as bad as yesterday.”
“How’s your bum?” he asked.
She slapped his arm. “Cheeky.” Then she laughed again; “Cheeky!” she realized.
James laughed too, though he wouldn’t understand the pun until later. She’d hit his arm. He was thinking about that.
“So, do you want to take me and my bum for a drink?”
It would have taken James weeks to ask, and he would never have dared put it that way.
“Yes,” he said immediately.
“Want to get off?”
He didn’t know what to say. That was a bit forward, wasn’t it? Were you supposed to plan these things ahead?
Angela pointed at the open bus door. “This is your stop, isn’t it?”
The bus driver was turned around in his seat.
James leapt up as if he’d sat on one of his own contraptions.
“Tomorrow?” Angela called after him.
“Yeah,” he called. “Tomorrow.”
On the way home he stuck drawing pins under the door handles of people’s cars. With the pinstripes already prepared, it was a quick operation. If he walked slow enough in the morning he would see it affect approximately three people on their way to work. Most of them had stopped checking now.
S
She got on the bus wearing a skirt and jacket instead of her work clothes.
“So where you taking me?”
He took her to a pub in town rather than one of the locals near where he lived. He was no longer allowed in the pubs near where he lived because of an incident with some darts.
They drank—white wine for her, cider for him (James loved how the Irish barman pronounced pint)—and they talked. It was easy. Easier than he thought. Later they ate—a burger with chunky chips for her, a kebab skewer with fries for him—and they talked some more, sitting closer. He held back about his dad, not sure he trusted her enough yet. She liked films starring Ethan Hawke, who she said looked a bit like him, and she liked musicals, which she said she couldn’t help, and she liked books by Anita Shreve for the same reasons she liked musicals.
“What books do you like?”
He told her. She laughed when he said he liked Dick but this time he got the joke and laughed with her.
“Favourite book?” she asked, dipping a chip in mayo.
His favourite book was one he liked because of the cover. Not the best reason to love a book, perhaps, but with its gleaming rocket standing mighty and slender on the surface of some barely there planet it was impossible for him not to love it. The rocket was silver, shining in the light of two suns, coming to a point that dazzled with reflected light.
“I like Fahrenheit 451,” he said instead. He wasn’t lying, but it wasn’t his favourite, even though The Hound in it was pretty good.
“Talking of which, is it just me or is it hot in here?” Angela took off her jacket, revealing a low top that tucked in under her arms to leave her shoulders as bare as the upper curves of her breasts.
“Yeah, you look hot,” James dared and she laughed, hitting his arm in the way that said cheeky like on the bus.
“Let’s go back to my place, then,” she said. Her eyes were a little wide with alcohol but not so much she didn’t know what she was offering, or to who.
James wanted to prick himself to test he was awake. “Alright then,” he said, before she could change her mind.
“Just pop to the ladies’ before I burst.”
While she was gone, James paid for their dinner and pocketed the skewer. Then he walked her home.
S
“It happens to lots of men with a new partner,” she said, hastily adding, “I read it.”
James lay beside her, breathing heavy. His penis was shrinking, wet with his finish and her sex.
“As long as you enjoyed it,” Angela said, turning to face him. Her breasts were still heaving with her own breaths, nipples still hard with arousal. “Besides, you can always give me another go later.”
He did. It lasted longer the second time but he was still the only one to climax, firing his come into her like tiny rockets.
“You’re my universe,” he said to her, drowsy.
“Aww,” she said, “sweet.”
On the way home James stabbed a dog with the skewer. It yelped and ran off. It took the skewer with it, sticking from its flank, but that didn’t matter. It had yelped.
S
They met up again mid-week. At first it had been strange, seeing her on the bus, but she acted normal and they fixed a date for a second drink. They drank less (her idea), and on the way home he told her about the stars.
“That one’s Polaris. The North Star, but really it’s three. It’s about 430 light years away.”
“How far is that?” Angela was holding his arm and leaning close as they walked.
“About two thousand five hundred trillion miles.” He rounded down, though he knew the answer was 2,522,249,280,000,000 miles. Ish.
“Wow.”
“And those, that bunch near it, see them? That’s Ursa Major. Like a big saucepan?” He drew it with his finger, connecting the dots.
“Oh yeah, I see it!”
They stopped walking and looked at the stars.
“Pin pricks in the sky,” James said. His voice was soft, wistful.
“I’ve got an idea,” said Angela. She took his hand and led him to a taxi rank near the station.
“Greendown Hill,” she said.
The view below was of the city, its lights bright and fuzzy and too orderly. But above, the sky was a huge dark blanket and the stars winked and twinkled within it. James pointed out all the ones he could name, and the constellations, and together they made up new ones of their own. When the burger van had closed, and the boy racers had sped back to their homes, Angela took James by the hand and led him to an area sheltered from the road by a copse of trees.
“What are you doing?” he asked her, but it was clear enough. She was unfastening his belt, pulling down his trousers. Made a joke about his “pocket rocket” that delighted him.
“We better use one of these this time,” she said, taking a condom from her purse.
James wondered if she was more health-conscious sober or if it was to reduce his sensitivity. She opened the packet and reached to put it on.
“I’ll do it,” he said. He sat on the grass and turned his body, self conscious. When he turned back, she had taken her knickers off from under her dress. She sank down upon him, warm and wet, and controlled the movements.
“Do you like this?” she asked.
Behind her was nothing but the night sky and its glitter of starlight. Angela slipped the straps of her dress down, pulled it lower to ride him topless.
“Oh yeah,” said James. He liked it. And then, “Yeah,” and then “Yes!”
S
James thought about her all day at work, every day, for the next week. He craved her, needed to see her again, looked forward to every bus journey.
So of course, the days passed slowly.
He thought about all the things he’d tell her. If they were going to be together, she needed to know about his dad. His mum, too, he supposed, but mainly it was his dad he wanted to talk about. He was the interesting one, and James knew he could trust Angela with that sort of information. As long as it didn’t seem he was showing off.
First, he’d find out if she liked David Bowie. Partly because he’d made a copy of his CD for her and a lot of it was Bowie. Mainly, though, because it would lead into the serious conversation, a link via “Life On Mars” or “Star
man.” Then he’d tell her about his dad, up in space.
“Hey James? Earth to James?”
It was Daniel. He was holding the phone so his hand was over the mouthpiece. James hadn’t even heard it ring.
“Want to go fix an internet connection in HR? Or you busy?” He nodded at James’ monitor. He had opened one of his spam messages for once and now its embarrassment was filling his screen.
“I’m blocking this site,” James explained.
“Whatever, mate. You want this call?”
It was just the two of them in the office. If James took care of the call, Daniel could check his internet history. If he stayed, Daniel would tell the girls in Human Resources what he’d been looking at. He’d get a reputation, at least a few sniggers when he was nearby. He’d get a nickname, “Two Minute Man” or “Needle Dick,” whenever he wasn’t around.
“You take it,” James said. He didn’t care about the HR girls.
When Daniel was gone James slid needle tips between some of the letters on his own keyboard, then he went. He left a note saying he was sick in case anybody cared.
He didn’t go home, though. He went to the dentist he knew was near the bus stop Angela used.
“Is Angela working?” he asked the receptionist.
“She’s up with—Hey, you can’t go up there.”
James went up the stairs and opened the surgery door to find her laughing at something said before he came in. The dentist was sticking a needle into someone’s mouth.
“James!”
The patient grunted with pain and the dentist withdrew quickly with an apology.
“Get out of here!” he yelled at James.
There was no need. James was already running.
S
“James! Wait!”
He pulled up his hood and held the button on his volume control until The Prodigy raced through his ears at a furiously loud pace.
Angela chased after him, came around in front and held his arms before he could step past her.
“James,” her mouth said. He heard only that he should find another place, or race—he could never tell—and then The Prodigy promised to take his brain to another dimension.
Angela tugged the cord rising out of his pocket and the plugs fell from his ears. The music sounded tinny and chaotic, like a sequence processed by computer. Which it was, really.
“I wanted to talk to you,” James explained.
“I’m working.”
“Sorry.”
“You can’t just come and see me at work. In my break, maybe, but not when I’m actually working. Why aren’t you at work?”
Because Daniel’s a prick.
James shrugged. “I wanted to talk to you,” he said again.
People were looking at them. James noticed and Angela noticed.
“We’ll talk tonight, okay?” she said. “At The Buzz?”
The Buzz was the pub where they’d had their second date. James didn’t like it much, it was very busy, but it had a good name. Named after Buzz Aldrin probably. James had made a joke about atmosphere he’d had to explain.
“Okay,” he said. “I want to tell you something.”
She smiled at him but it wasn’t at full brightness. He’d upset her, coming to work.
“Yeah. I want to tell you something, too,” she said. “I’ll see you tonight.”
S
When James was twelve he was caught burying knitting needles point-up in the park. They stuck from the ground where kids would land if they jumped from the swings. The policeman had been shrewd enough to check the rest of the area and found some of James’ pinstripes stuck down across the tops of the monkey bars.
“Why do you do this? Why do you have to find new ways to hurt me, James?”
Because it’s the only way to make you feel something. Because sometimes the hurt is good, it helps, and eventually you can get used to the bad part, the pain, if everything’s all better afterwards. Just a quick pain, a nip, just a bit of a sting, that’s all. Then gone. All better.
That was how James wanted to answer her but he didn’t have the right words to say it, not in the right order.
If James didn’t make someone feel something it was like they were asleep and couldn’t notice him. A point in the right direction and they noticed him, they woke up to everything around them, and the yelp, the leap, the sharp words or jabbing finger, gave James a tingling feeling, like he was waking up, like—
“Pins and needles.”
James said it aloud, surprised he’d almost forgotten them. He went back inside and retrieved his things, checked himself in the mirror once again, and headed for The Buzz.
S
Angela stared at him through the silence, waiting for his response. She drank too much wine while he tried to make words.
“I don’t understand,” James said.
“It’s not you. I just don’t think I’m ready for a relationship yet.”
“I love you.”
“James . . .”
“So it was just a physical thing, then.”
“I don’t think that was really working either.”
James stared into his cider. “You don’t feel anything?”
“I feel awful. But we can still be friends, can’t we?”
He hadn’t told her about his father, the rocket man, up in space. He hadn’t given her the CD he’d made, the one that his father sent even before CDs were invented and even his mum admitted they didn’t have a CD player yet and she usually lied about dad because she didn’t like him much any more.
“She didn’t try hard enough,” James said.
“Who?”
“You didn’t try hard enough to feel something, but I can help you. I didn’t feel much either after my dad went away, and then my mum went too and it was like I was numb but then I met you and I started to feel things again, properly. Like the tingling feeling you get when you’ve rested on your arm or foot too long and then the blood comes back. Weird at first, then nice, and then you’re whole.”
“James—” Angela started, then burst into tears. James reeled back as if jabbed. Angela gathered her handbag, wiped her eyes, and ran out of the pub.
S
It took James over two hours to get home. He walked the entire way, a slow shuffling step with his eyes on the ground even though the night was clear and there were stars and stars and stars. His hands were in his pockets and in each fist he held a handful of pins which he squeezed sometimes when the pain was too hard.
When he arrived home, the phone was ringing. His hands had been clenched so tight it hurt to open them and he had to shake the drawing pins from his skin before he could answer.
“Hello?”
“James? Is that you?”
“Angela?”
“Did you mean it? What you said in the pub, all those things?”
She sounded drunk.
“Of course I did. My dad—”
“Because I get so lonely too, sometimes, you know? And I did want it to work with us, I did. I’m not usually easy. I did try to feel something. I’m not cold or mean or anything.”
“I know you’re not.”
“I know I just said I’m not easy, and I have been drinking a little bit because I felt so bad after seeing you—”
She felt.
“—but will you come over?”
“Yes.”
“Come over and we’ll try one more time. Do you understand what I mean? Come and show me that you care for me, I need to feel it.”
She made a noise that was part laugh and part sob and to James it was the best sound he had ever heard.
“Did that make sense?” she asked. She sniffed.
“Yes.”
&
nbsp; “So you’ll come over? Just for tonight?”
“Yes.”
S
Angela was wearing a thick dressing gown instead of the trousers and top from earlier, but she was still drinking wine. Her hair was wet and he could hear the bath emptying somewhere else in the house.
“I made you a CD,” said James. “It’s a copy of the one my dad made. I used to think Rocket Man Elton was his message to me, an explanation and apology, but sometimes I wonder if mum was right and—”
She took the CD and put it down without looking at it. Put it down near the stereo but didn’t put it in the stereo. “James, let’s not talk about that now. Do you mind? Can we just go to bed and lie there, together? I still need to think about things.”
He nodded and she took him to her bedroom where the quilt was fresh and clean and turned down. She shrugged off her dressing gown to reveal she was naked beneath, but there was no show in it. She slid into bed and pulled the covers over skin that was still pink and warm from her bath.
“Come on, James.”
He stripped down to his shorts and got in beside her.
“Turn the lamp off? The switch is just behind the—Yeah.”
With the lamp off, James saw she’d bought some of those glow-in-the-dark stars you could get in toy shops. They were stuck on her ceiling in make-believe constellations, imaginary galaxies, though one cluster sort of resembled—
“Ursa Major,” she said, pointing. Her arm was a darker shadow in the gloom.
“I can’t believe you have these,” James said.
“I bought them after our moment on the hill.”
“Oh.”
“I was going to take them down after seeing you tonight, depending how things went.”
Her hand searched for his penis under the covers. Found it.
“Shall we try again?”
James wondered if she meant try the sex again, or try the relationship again, and realized the latter depended on the former. He tried to focus on the stars. His mother had bought him glow stars many years ago.